The present disclosure relates to the technical field of machinery, in particular to a link, a robotic arm and a robot.
Medical surgical micro-instruments are widely used in various operations due to the advantages of accurate positioning, stable operation, desirable flexibility, large working range, radiation and infection protection, and the like. The surgical robot is a type of medical equipment. In the operation, the patient on the patient's bed is pushed to a position in front of the surgical robot, and the surgical robot has its multiple robotic arms controlled to move onto the patient's body to perform the corresponding surgery via one or more preset hole of the patient's skin. During the operation, a surgical micro-instrument held by one of the robotic arms can be rotated around a respective rotation point (called RCM, Remote Center of Motion, point) at the respective preset hole and inserted into the patient via the respective preset hole.
The existing surgical robots have been developed to have a function of realizing the rotation of the robotic arm around the RCM point by the constraint of a mechanical parallelogram mechanism. For example, steel wires or straps are employed for transmission and constraint of the rotation of the links of the robotic arm, so that a rod of an effector unit connected to an end of the robotic arm exhibits a coupling characteristic of a parallelogram. In a structure of the robotic arm in which multiple links are connected in series and which is very long, the compactness and high rigidity of the robotic arm with a strap drive train have a crucial impact on the surgical performance of the surgical robot.
To this end, the present disclosure provides a link, a robotic arm and a robot to at least partially solve the problems in the existing knowledge.
A series of concepts in simplified form have been introduced in the summary section, which are described in further detail in the detailed description section. The summary section of the present disclosure does not mean to attempt to limit the key features and essential technical features of the claimed technical solution, nor does it mean to attempt to determine the protection scope of the claimed technical solution.
According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, a link for a robotic arm is provided. The link defines an inner cavity extending in a length direction of the link. At least a part of the inner cavity is seamlessly enclosed in a circumference perpendicular to the length direction of the link.
According to a second aspect of the present disclosure, a robotic arm comprising at least one link is provided. The link defines an inner cavity extending in a length direction of the link. At least a part of the inner cavity is seamlessly enclosed in a circumference perpendicular to the length direction of the link.
According to a third aspect of the present disclosure, a surgical robot is provided. The surgical robot includes at least one robotic arm. The robotic arm includes at least one link. The link defines an inner cavity extending in a length direction of the link. At least a part of the inner cavity is seamlessly enclosed in a circumference perpendicular to the length direction of the link.
The following drawings of the present disclosure are incorporated herein as a part of the present disclosure for understanding of the present disclosure. The drawings illustrate embodiments and description of the present disclosure, which is used to explain the principle of the present disclosure.
In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to understand the present disclosure thoroughly. It will be apparent, however, for those skilled in the art that embodiments of the present disclosure may be practiced without one or more of these details. In other examples, some technical features well-known in the art are not described in order to avoid confusion with the embodiments of the present disclosure.
For a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the present disclosure, detailed structures will be presented in the following description. Obviously, the implementation of the embodiments of the present disclosure is not limited to the specific details familiar to those skilled in the art. It should be noted that the ordinal numbers such as “first” and “second” quoted in the present disclosure are merely identifications, and do not have any other meanings, such as a specific order. Also, for example, the term “a first element” does not by itself imply the presence of “a second element”, nor does the term “a second element” by itself imply the presence of “a first element”. The terms “upper”, “lower”, “front”, “rear”, “left”, “right” and similar expressions used in the present disclosure are for the purpose of illustration and not limitation.
As shown in
The robot may include at least one robotic arm 100 and an effector 170 disposed at an end of the robotic arm 100. The robotic arm 100 can drive the effector 170 to be inserted into a preset hole of the patient's skin and rotate to complete the corresponding operation. Since the effector 170 is a structure well-known in the art, it will not be described in detail.
The robotic arm 100 according to the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to
The robotic arm 100 mainly includes at least one link 110. In the case that the robotic arm 100 includes at least two links 110, the at least two links 110 are connected end to end and two adjacent links 110 are pivotally connected.
In the present embodiment, the link 110 has a length and defines an inner cavity 111 extending in a length direction L of the link 110. The inner cavity 111 extends straight from end to end of the link 110 in a direction (specifically, the length direction L of the link 110). As shown in
In the present embodiment, the cross section of the inner cavity 111 is configured in a rectangle shape, that is, the section of the inner cavity 111 perpendicular to the length direction L of the link 110 has a shape of a rectangle. Those skilled in the art can understand that the shape of the cross section of the inner cavity 111 is not limited to this embodiment and may also be a circle, an ellipse, a square, an irregular shape or any other suitable shape.
As shown in
The robotic arm 100 further includes at least two flexible transmission assemblies and at least two pivot shafts 130 (see
Specifically, the flexible transmission assembly includes a pair of pulleys 121 (see
The end openings 112 and/or the side openings 113 are configured to allow the flexible transmission assembly enter into the inner cavity, and to provide an access for a wrench to perform maintenance at the end such as tightening, thereby facilitating the mounting and tensioning of the flexible member on the pulleys and the maintenance of the transmission element such as the pulleys.
Preferably, as shown in
As shown in
As shown in
Specifically, the supporting portion 115 is disposed in the side opening 113. The supporting portion 115 may be disposed in at least one of each pair of side openings 113. The supporting portion 115 includes a first supporting rib 116 extending in a circumferential direction and a second supporting rib 117 connected with the first supporting rib 116. The second supporting rib 117 extends outward from the first supporting rib 116 in a radial direction of the first supporting rib 116. The pivot portion 132 of the pivot shaft 130 passes through an inner hole defined by the first supporting rib 116, and the first supporting rib 116 can support and limit the position of the pivot portion 132.
As shown in
The link 110 according to the present embodiment is one-piece. Specifically, the link 110 may be integrally formed (for example, formed by machining such as wire cutting), may be formed by drawing and then machining, or may be formed by casting.
In addition, the link 110 includes at least one recess 114 at an outer surface of the link 110. These recesses 114 is configured to accommodate at least one of wires, circuit boards, sensors, connecting flanges and other mechanical and electrical parts.
The link 110 of the present disclosure can be used not only in the above-mentioned flexible transmission system, but also in other types of belt transmission system or wire transmission system, etc., where there is a strong demand for the miniaturization of the cavity and high rigidity.
Unless otherwise defined, technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by those skilled in the art of the present disclosure. The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing a particular implementation only and is not intended to limit the present disclosure. A term such as “disposed” present herein means that one element is attached to the other element directly or by an intermediary piece. Features described herein in an embodiment may be applied to the embodiment alone or in combination with other features, unless the feature is not applicable in the other embodiment or stated otherwise.
The present disclosure has been described by the above-mentioned embodiments, but it should be understood that the above-mentioned embodiments are only for the purpose of illustration and description, and are not intended to limit the present disclosure to the scope of the described embodiments. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that various variations and modifications can be made according to the teachings of the present disclosure, which all fall within the scope of the claimed protection of the present disclosure.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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202110013227.X | Jan 2021 | CN | national |
This application is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/CN2021/132877, filed on Nov. 24, 2021, which claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 202110013227.X, filed on Jan. 6, 2021, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | PCT/CN2021/132877 | Nov 2021 | US |
Child | 18187580 | US |